Amnesty Says Death Penalty No Answer to Rape

Salil Shetty, secretary-general of Amnesty International, at the Amnesty International Chairs Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, 18 June 2010.

The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time talked to Salil Shetty, secretary-general of Amnesty International, about human rights in the country during 2012. We talked with Mr. Shetty about the recent horrific rape in Delhi, India’s attempts to police Internet content and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which shields security forces serving in Kashmir and the northeast of the country from prosecution. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

India Real Time: Why do you think the rape of a 23-year old in Delhi this month has caused such public anger?

Mr. Salil Shetty: Following the Delhi rape, because it happened in a particular way and it happened in Delhi, it grabbed people’s attention. Fact of the matter is: violence of all sorts, people are getting away with it. Sexual violence itself…How many incidents have we seen in the last one year or so – Guwahati, Bangalore – and those are the ones which are very extreme. Impunity, which is at the heart of many of the issues, is that people think they can do things and get away with it.

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WSJ: Why do you think so many people are calling for the death penalty for those found guilty of the latest rape?

Mr. Shetty: Taking the Delhi rape case, we have senior leaders asking for death penalty for people who have committed the rape. We get mixed up with the issues. They say that two wrongs make a right, that’s effectively what they are saying. Somebody commits a crime, so we will commit one more. As far as Amnesty International is concerned we say death penalty under any circumstances is a crime, we think it is contrary to the right to life. There’s a real direct problem. The empirical evidence shows that it doesn’t have a deterrent effect. There is no correlation between the two. We are looking to India to become one of the states that completely stops execution.

WSJ: Recently two women in Mumbai were arrested for posting comments on Facebook that the city should not have shut down after Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s death in November. What do you think of this?

Mr. Shetty: Information will flow. We are in a digital world you need to deal with it and you can’t have archaic ideas. What are you going to do? Control text messages? It’s not possible, people are going to express themselves. The idea that you are going to come down like a ton of bricks on those two women in Mumbai is bizarre.

WSJ: Are you still pushing for investigations into the killings in Gujarat state in 2002, when more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in retaliation for an attack on Hindus by a Muslim mob?

Mr. Shetty: Amnesty International is still concerned about the lack of justice for victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Investigations and trial processes have made headway in only a handful of cases. We urge the new government in Gujarat to strengthen its efforts to investigate all those suspected of being involved in the 2002 killings, whether they are political leaders, police or government officials.

WSJ: What do you think is one of the biggest and least spoken about human rights issues in India?

Mr. Shetty: The most challenging thing in this country is access to justice. If you have power, if you have influence then the law doesn’t matter. That cannot continue to be the system, that’s the system we have prevalent in many places. The criminal justice system doesn’t deliver. And it takes us back to the lack of accountability, impunity.

WSJ: And if you could change one law in India with the aim of protecting human rights, what would it be?

Mr. Shetty: Of course, some unbelievably outrageous laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, or AFSPA. Everybody — internationally and domestically — is saying that it is not in line with India’s international obligations. The AFSPA is a law unto itself; it’s a lawless law.

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India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.